International Energy Efficiency Forum: live platform for launching public-private initiatives

In June 2015, the Agency for Private Initiative Development organized and held a large-scale event combining presentations of Polish and Ukrainian practices in energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources (RES) with live debates of students, scientists, and business executives from two countries.

The Forum ‘Environmental Safety and Energy Efficiency’ took place on June 25-26, 2015 in Yaremche, Ivano-Frankivsk Region, as the final event within the project ‘Student with Initiative: Vector of Energy Saving’, implemented by the Agency for Private Initiative Development in partnership with the Executive Committee of Ivano-Frankivsk City Council (Ukraine) and the Municipality of Lublin (Poland) with EU financial assistance.

The practice of organizing meetings between the employers and potential young employees was launched by the Agency back in 2011, and since then the judges in student debate tournaments have been heads of companies and organizations that may well become the first place of employment for outstanding young people, students from higher educational institutions from Ivano-Frankivsk Region. This is a win-win situation: companies get a chance to upgrade the necessary business knowledge and to find prospective staff, while young speakers, instead of a formalized interview, fully present their ingenuity, leadership potential, team spirit, and charm in ardent intellectual battles.

At this time, the Agency’s team decided to expand the experiment and to gather for communication and experience exchange purposes the representatives of large industrial companies, small and medium-sized businesses, administration, and lecturers of higher educational institutions, representatives of local authorities and students-debaters.

In parallel, the forum hosted the panels of Safe environment, Alternative environmental education starting with the school bench, Energy efficiency, Alternative and renewable energy sources. The panels developed packages of proposals for employers of both countries interested in the development of environmental and energy efficient technologies, as well as for educational institutions to further expand the range of topics for their environmental research and studies in the field of RES, and also recommendations relating to effective environmental education for academic entities. Young and experienced participants communicated on a par basis, exchanged business cards and agreed on new meetings. As the result, the developed proposals were equally understandable and valuable for experienced professionals and for young students.

One more component of the forum was the voting fair for project ideas in the field of energy efficiency in Ivano-Frankivsk Region of Ukraine and Lublin Voivodeship of Poland developed by students of both regions within the project. Voting took place throughout the two days of the event. It was the representatives of companies who selected the proposals they were most interested in from the point of view of their feasibility, practical use and correspondence of the suggested activities to expected results. In the final part of the forum the results of evaluation were summarized and most demanded projects were awarded. It is of interest that Forum facilitated the agreements to launch a new international project Ukrainian Renewable Energy Clusters – a Real Tool for Development and Effective Cooperation of Ukrainian Small and Medium-Sized Companies (details at: www.energyouth.org). The new project was launched right after a year, and its coordinator in Ivano-Frankivsk Region was a post-graduate student of the Precarpathian University, an active participant of the project ‘Student with Initiative: Vector of Energy Saving’, a student of RADAR Ukrainian-Polish School (2014) and the author of the project idea of science park development at the Precarpathian University that got the largest number of votes during the forum.

And traditionally for such meetings there took place a debate tournament. That was an open final round of the international debate on the strengths and weaknesses for RES implementation in Ukraine and in Eastern Europe. Students from Ivano-Frankivsk and Lublin participated in the debates under the topic ‘The governments of countries should allocate 2% of their GDPs to the development of renewable energies’. This time the audience (120 professionals, scientists, businesspersons, and active young people from Poland and Ukraine) had a chance to influence the course of the discussion by asking questions and commenting on the speakers’ statements.

The goal of the forum was achieved: new opportunities for introducing energy efficient technologies, alternative and renewable energy were found, ideas for new joint projects between business, scientific community and student youth were suggested; cooperation was established between the representatives of educational institutions and youth organizations from different regions of Ukraine and Poland.

The advisor to the chairmen of PJSC ‘Ivano-FrankivskCement’, a forum facilitator Pavlo Andrusyak stated: ‘The forum has become an innovative tool for establishing the dialogue between the representatives of business, public sector, student youth and representatives of the authorities. Currently, the dialogue focuses on the topic which is vital for Europe – energy efficiency. Tomorrow’s topics could be scientific innovations aimed to improve production processes, to create conditions for entrepreneurship development, ideas of youth relating to tourism development and everything relevant’.